What They Didn't Know
by WriteChristineR
Summary: Luke gets advice on his breakup with Lorelai from an unlikely person.


What They Didn't Know

"Okay, say that again?"

"What?" he asked, looking to be in total disbelief that I'd just asked him to repeat himself.

"What you just said. Repeat it."

"We broke up April, we're not together anymore."

"I know what it means to break up, I just can't believe that you guys… you really think you're done? Your relationship is over?" This didn't sound right. The whole thing sounded crazy to me.

"You're really going to make me talk about this now? Here? There are people here. People I have to see on a daily basis."

"Now, yes, but if you want to go somewhere else, I'm totally open to the possibility." It had been too long since I'd been around. School had really been occupying my time. Now I had to get caught up on exactly what had gone on in my father's life since I'd seen him last. Even the thought of it having been too long, a little more than a month, since I'd seen my dad seemed weird to me. I hadn't seen or heard much about him my entire life, and it had always seemed to me perfectly normal. Now I had only gone a couple of weeks without seeing him, and I felt like we had so much to catch up on.

It wasn't only that, but I needed to understand what had happened between my dad and Lorelai. It didn't make sense to me that they'd broken up. They had always seemed to work so well. When they were together, my dad was happy. He didn't always look or act it, but I could tell. His often irritated personality lost some of its edge. He joked and even countered some of Lorelai's often bizarre references to movies and music I'd never heard of. When he was with Lorelai, it was like my dad had an alter-ego. He was a different person, and to be totally honest, a person I liked better than the person I'd first introduced myself to. Who'd have thought that a science fair project would have such an impact on my life?

"Fine," he said. "Upstairs."

"Upstairs. Okay. Let's go upstairs." He was going to tell me every detail of everything I wanted to know, he was going to do it at that very evening, and apparently he was going to do it upstairs. "I'm assuming the diner can live without you for a little while?"

"Cesar and Lane are both here, they can handle it," he said, heading upstairs. I followed him to his apartment without much pestering. I sat down on the couch, and he sat in the chair across from the couch. It was a little awkward, we didn't usually sit across from each other like this, like we were set up to have an important talk. Although the conversation between us would likely be important, at least at this point I was hoping so, it seemed too formal. "Okay…" he said awkwardly.

"First of all…" I said, and I indicated the empty space beside me on the couch. "If you sit here like you usually do it might be less weird."

"Okay," he said, and sat next to me. That was better.

"So where were we? Oh, yes. You and Lorelai broke up?"

"We did."

"Well… why?" That was the first thing I needed to know.

"It just wasn't working between us. That's all."

"That's a lie."

"What? No it isn't, why do people break up? It doesn't work. Well, it didn't work."

"I've seen you and Lorelai together. It works."

"When have you seen Lorelai and me together?"

"Multiple times."

"Really? Name two."

"At my birthday party, and…" I trailed off, and realized that that was the only time I'd really seen Lorelai and Luke together. It seemed like it had been more than that.

"When else?" he asked, sounding impatient.

"That's it."

"Ah."

I marveled at how much my father could say in a word. Not even a word, a syllable. His "Ah" had said, "Maybe you don't know as much about our relationship as you think you do." But I had to disagree.

"That's how good it was. That's how much it worked. I could see how well it worked, how you acted around each other, everything, in one evening. That's the only time I've seen you together, but it feels like I've seen you together so many times, and it feels like when you're together, you're both… happier."

"Have you ever seen Lorelai without me there?"

"Well, not exactly… You were downstairs when we were sleeping…"

"I was downstairs. Just downstairs, not far away."

The subliminal messages were overwhelming me. My dad seems like a simple person, but I have a feeling that there's more going on in his head than he wants to admit. At that moment, I knew that there was a lot more going on. I just needed to get at more of what was going on below the surface. It's usually better to be blunt with my dad, so I came right out and asked what I was sure he didn't mean to express. "So you think Lorelai is happier without you?"

"Ye… no, I don't know," he said quickly, sounding agitated. "What are you, a psychologist?"

"No I'm not a psychologist, I'm your thirteen year old daughter. I'm not even interested in psychology. Chemistry, genetics, maybe engineering, but not psychology."

"Well then, is this conversation over?"

"Are you and Lorelai over?"

"I've already told you, yes, we're over." With each of my questions he looked more aggravated. My father being the type of person he was, I knew that he didn't want to be talking about this.

"No. You said you'd broken up, but you didn't say you were over."

"We're… over."

"You don't think you'll ever get back together?"

"It's looking like no."

"Do you want to get back together?"

"Ye… Na… Why are you asking me this? Is it really any of your business?"

"Well, sort of, you're my father, and if you'd have married her, she'd have been my step mother, and I like Lorelai, so, it's sort of my business."

"Well…"

"Why didn't I get to meet Lorelai until my birthday party? Like I said, she would have been my step mother, maybe I should have met her earlier. I mean, did you even tell Lorelai you had a daughter when you found out?"

"I guess this is pretty much your business, huh, since it's about you?"

"I guess it would be."

"When I found out about you it was so… new. I needed to process it myself before I had to tell Lorelai."

"Must have been weird? All of a sudden you had a daughter. Just like all of a sudden I had a father. Except that I've always known I had a father, somewhere. I knew you existed. You didn't even know I existed. You didn't even know about it when my mother was pregnant."

"Right, and…"

"But she was your fiancé, and she was going to have a step-daughter, and she needed to know that. How long did you wait before you told her? Two weeks? Three?"

"Something like that."

"How long?"

"Two months."

"Yea, she definitely needed to know sooner than that."

"I figured that out."

"When?"  
"Every time I wanted to tell her and I didn't."

"Why didn't you?"

"I told you, I needed time to process."

"She'd be freaked out. You knew she'd be freaked out when she heard you had a daughter, and you thought maybe she wouldn't want to marry you anymore."

"Yea, something like that." That phrase apparently had multiple meanings in my father's mind. The first time he'd said it, it had meant that he didn't want to tell me the real answer. This time, he'd meant that I was exactly right.

"Does that have something to do with why you broke up? Because you didn't tell her?" I had a feeling that my very existence had something to do with why they had broken up. I didn't like that idea. Apparently my science fair project had had a very big impact on more people's lives than just mine, and not necessarily in a good way. Although I was happy to have met my father, I was starting to think that both my dad and Lorelai would have been better off had I come up with a different project to do.

"Maybe. I don't even know why we broke up exactly. Not as exactly as you apparently want to hear it. We didn't work, she wanted to go fast, I wanted to go slow, and then I said I'd go fast for her, but by then it was too late, she'd already…" He'd said the last part quickly, then stopped abruptly, like he'd said more than he'd meant to.

"She'd already what?" Now that he'd started, I wasn't going to let him back out.

"Never mind."

"You started to say something, now you have to finish it."

"No, that part's really not your business." He said this with such finality that I realized that maybe he was right. I didn't need to know every detail. I could guess, but I didn't need to guess, and I didn't need to know.

"Okay."

He nodded, seeming pleased and a little surprised that I was letting it go at that. I got the feeling that he'd just sighed in relief, though he hadn't.

"My point is, you and Lorelai belong together. I could tell when I saw you together. Your conversations work…"

He cut me off there. "Have you seen Lorelai with her daughter? Their conversations work. That doesn't mean they should get married."

"…you look happy when you're with her," I kept right on going. "You're less… grumpy, I'll say…"

"I am not grumpy."

"Irritable? Either way it means the same. I don't know how exactly to describe it, but the two of you have… chemistry, I guess. You work. If I ever had a relationship, and don't make that face because your thirteen year old daughter would consider being in a relationship, I would want it to be like yours with Lorelai. You two… you're perfect. You're meant to be together."

At this he didn't say anything, and I knew that there wasn't anything else that I could say. It was better for me to leave Luke to think about what I'd just said, which I knew he'd do if I just left. "I should go. I have a lot of homework, and my mom wants me home soon…"

"Bye."

"Bye." I walked out of the room, leaving Luke sitting on his couch. I'd ridden my bike to the diner, so I left and started to ride home. Small as the town was, it seemed like a particularly strange coincidence when I saw Lorelai walking toward me. In reality I guess it wasn't that strange, considering the fact that I was riding past the parking lot of the Dragonfly Inn, where I knew she worked, but as many times as I'd rode past this way since I'd known Lorelai, I hadn't yet seen her there until then.

"Hi, Lorelai," I said as I neared her. I stopped my bike, since it seemed like the polite thing to do if we were going to say anything beyond a passing "hi."

"Oh, April, hi. What brings you to the Hollow? Visiting your dad?"

"Yep." Looking at Lorelai, I noticed that she wasn't wearing her engagement ring. That made sense, considering that if they were broken up they probably weren't still engaged.

"Good, good."

"I heard that you broke up." I wasn't sure whether or not I should have said that, but I decided for it. "Sorry," I added, as a courtesy and in case I shouldn't have said it.

"We did."

"Do you mind my asking why? My dad wouldn't tell me, exactly."

"It just… didn't work."

"That's what he said," I told her. "You're both wrong," I added, quietly enough for her to know that I was serious, but loudly enough for her to hear me as I got back on my bike and started peddling away.

I don't know how it happened, or if it had anything to do with what I'd said to either of them, but the next time I visited my dad, which was a little more than a week later, Lorelai was there, at the diner. They were flirting and laughing as they had at my birthday party, and Lorelai was once again wearing her engagement ring. She caught me looking at it, and said only two words: June third.


End file.
